Allen carries home hopes in Irish start

The Northern Ireland Trophy, inaugurated a year ago as an invitation tournament, returns to the Waterfront Hall, Belfast tomorrow as the first of the new season's seven world ranking events. Local support will be squarely behind Mark Allen, the 2004 world amateur champion, who beat Steve Davis and John Higgins at this venue last year and went on to achieve a ranking of 62nd at the end of his first professional season.

It is very early in the year to hold a ranking event, a move dictated by Barry Hearn's Betfred Premier League occupying every Thursday except one from September until early December. After a summer more suitable for the golf course than sweltering on the practice table, some top players may not be as well prepared as those who have had to survive the qualifying competition at Prestatyn.

Stephen Hendry and Davis, just back from playing in a poker tournament in Las Vegas, will make do with a week's practice while Ronnie O'Sullivan's concentration is currently divided between snooker and pool.

While O'Sullivan seems motivated by the lure of something new, others are looking for opportunities in pool to bulk up their snooker income. Although the world ranking circuit of seven events is worth £2.83m in comparison with last season's £2.34m for six, even this does not compare favourably with the previous three seasons, all with eight events, which offered, decreasingly, £5.19m, £4.89m and £2.95m. The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association continues to find the sport's blossoming popularity difficult to translate into commercial affluence.